A Girl's Best Friend?
by Tim Radley
Summary: Diamonds are a girl's best friend, or so the old saying goes.


**A Girl's Best Friend?**

by Tim Radley

trad50@yahoo.co.uk

Tomb Raider, Lara Croft, her image and likeness are trademark and copyright © of EIDOS Interactive and Core Design. No infringement or challenge to these copyrights is intended.

This story contains violence and strong language. Big thanks to Heidi Ahlmen for her help and comments J

**1. Diamonds and Skulls**.

"I thought I'd find you here, Lara." Layer-er, the thick South African accent made her name sound like.

She didn't look round or seem at all surprised by the interruption. Instead she kept on meticulously pulling the tangled web of vines back from the broken rock face, slowly uncovering what looked like a narrow cave entrance. "Hello Nils. Nice evening for stroll, don't you think?"

"I knew it. I knew you were up to something."

"That's nice dear," she responded blandly. She still didn't bother to look round though.

"Damn it, Lara . . ." Nils Botha took a step towards her, extending a hand to grab her shoulder.

She turned and caught the hand before it landed, making him jump back in barely concealed surprise. "Problem?" she asked. Her brown eyes seemed almost to shine in the twilight.

"Damn right there's a problem."

Lara tilted an eyebrow enquiringly, fixing Nils's gaze calmly with her own. He was a big man, in his earlier fifties. Blonde hair and beard were bleached almost white by prolonged exposure to sunlight, and darkly tanned skin had the quality of badly weathered teak. Improbably pale blue eyes looked out at her from a scowling, heavily creased face. There were large sweat rings under both his armpits and his breath was coming quickly – despite his best efforts to conceal that fact. He'd obviously been pushing himself quite hard to catch up with her.

"You've been holding out on us." It was said with a strange mixture of anger and glee.

Glee at being the one to catch her in the act, she thought, pursing her lips. _Never mind the fact that even he couldn't explain what the act was. _

She looked past him. Through the sparse tree-tops the evening sky showed clearly, flawless cobalt blue. It was supposed to be rainy season, but there was no sign of that yet this year. At least not here in southern Huila province of Angola. The Bicuari National Park was distinctly arid looking, at least further out in the vast stretches of grassland.

A cacophony of insect life made a constant background hum that her brain had learned to filter out except when she listening specifically for it. The only other thing she could hear was a soft stirring of warm breeze through the sparse undergrowth. 

"Have you thought much about Vitali Cherno?" she asked him quietly, letting go of his wrist.

"Heh?" He blinked at her.

"Oh come on Nils. You're a clever man. Allegedly at least. He made an approach to you. He made an approach to me. And we both told him where to go. Didn't we?"

"Well I know I did."

"So suspicious," she murmured. "I'm sure you've found yourself wondering exactly what it was Vitali wanted."

"Knapf's cache. What else?" Nils sounded both annoyed and sceptical, as if suspecting she was trying to distract or bamboozle him somehow.

"He specifically told me that was not what he wanted," Lara said. "'Another trifle that you might find in the vicinity' was how he phrased his request."

"Pah! And you believed him? Russians lie the same way other people breathe. Everyone knows that. Especially oilmen like Vitali. You don't become a billionaire in Russia by being honest."

Lara's gaze darted to a thick patch of thorny shrubbery about fifty yards away to the right. A group of roosting foxbats the size of small hawks flapped ponderously into the air, disturbed by the passage of something below them. She stared fixedly at the spot for several long seconds, before letting out a deep breath and returning her attention to Nils. Just an antelope.

"Leaving cheap national stereotyping aside for a moment, why would he be interested in the Knapf find? It's hardly glamorous, is it? And Vitali's not known as the kind of obsessive collector who might view it as an attractive proposition."

"What are you saying? I've got no patience for this kind of bullshit."

Lara stifled a sigh. Sometimes Nils Botha gave the distinct impression that he wasn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. Despite an IQ in the 160 region. "I'm saying he was after something else. Something he found out about from a different source to us. I'm curious as to what, exactly, it is."

Nils's expression showed that he wasn't inclined to believe a word of it. "Give it a rest Lara. You've always been a snaky one. You gave us the wrong co-ordinates at the beginning, and you knew the dig would turn up nothing. Now you're trying to sneak off with the prize behind everybody else's back so you can have the credit – and the wealth – to yourself. But I'm onto you this time, girl. At least have the grace to admit it when you're caught red-handed."

She shook her head resignedly. "Whatever you say, Nils. Whatever you say." Then she turned her back on him and started towards the now uncovered cave entrance.

"Heh, where d'you think you're going?"

"To steal all that treasure I've been keeping from you. Where do you think?" She stopped briefly, gesturing towards the waiting gloom. "You can go first if you like."

Standing beside her, he peered somewhat gingerly into the dark opening. "So. What's inside?"

Lara made an exasperated noise. "I don't know! For all I know it's just a leopard's den. But it's the first sign of anything remotely interesting that I've found in the surrounding hectare."

"You really don't know what it is?" Some the scepticism bled away from his voice.

"A cave?" She brushed past him, snapping on the maglight torch she was carrying and aiming the brilliant white beam inside. "Looks solid enough," she said, mainly to herself, after a couple of minutes of very careful inspection. Then, ducking her head slightly, she took several cautious steps inside.

"Well, Nils? Are you coming or not?" He didn't answer, so she continued. "Bit of a waste following me all this way if you're just going to stay there and moan. And who knows what I might try to make off with without you around to supervise?"

Behind her he muttered something that she didn't quite catch, though the tone of voice made her smile just a little. He sounded slightly scared.

"Don't worry. It gets wider father in. Even you haven't got fat enough to get stuck. Though give it a few more years . . .." Her smile broadened as she heard his footsteps as he hurriedly caught up with her, breath puffing. So predictable.

They advanced slowly, Lara a couple of steps ahead of him, the beam of the maglight playing over the uneven walls. "What do you think? Natural?"

He stopped, laying a broad heavily-calloused hand on a patch of rough grey stone. "Nah. See here? Those are tool marks. Faded, I'll grant, but I'd stake my reputation on it. Someone's widened this by hand."

Lara nodded, not disputing the assessment. 

Whatever else you could say about Nils, he knew his stuff. Of course, knowing his stuff hadn't been enough to stop him getting kicked out of the University of Cape Town over ten years ago now. Breaking the nose of your faculty head in a drunken rage tended to trump 'knowing your stuff' every time. That was how they'd met, more or less – a pair of disreputable and slightly despised rogues of the profession, both trying to circumvent the same inconvenient laws and regulations. It hadn't quite been love at first sight, but then again, they hadn't strangled each other yet – which probably counted for something. "How old, roughly?" she asked him softly.

There was a quiet rasping sound as he ran his fingers contemplatively through his beard. "Difficult one. See the floor?"

It sloped ever so slightly downwards in front of them, heavily silted with dry mud in which chunks of broken rock were deeply embedded. "I see the floor," Lara confirmed.

"This place acts as a channel during the flash floods by the look of it. All the extra wear . . .. Makes it difficult to be sure." He paused. "Old."

They were about fifteen yards inside now and the maglight still didn't show the cave's far end. Footing was becoming increasingly uncertain, the cave floor strewn with more and more rocks as the advanced slowly. "Some kind of mine, do you think?" Lara asked after a time.

"Shoddy work if it is." A pause. "Nothing much to mine out here anyway. The main gold and iron seams are miles north, in the mountains, and most of yer diamonds are the other side of the country." As she looked at him sidelong she saw Nils shaking his head. "A mite strange, I have to confess." He sounded intrigued, their earlier argument forgotten.

Ahead of them the way narrowed, broken rock piled in a front of them. They stopped again. "A cave in," Lara surmised. "The repeated flooding has cleared it out somewhat over the years."

Nils grunted, moving past her for the first time. "Shine the torch up there a moment, would yer me dear?"

She did as she was asked, and a moment later Nils made a small, satisfied noise. "Collapsed deliberately. And by someone without access to explosives. See the marks there? Dead giveaway." He looked at her, radiating a palpable sense of excitement. "We're onto something here Lara. Maybe we were looking in the wrong place all long. Your map was just a bit out eh? I mean, mapmaking's moved on a lot in the last couple of centuries, hasn't it. Stands to reason."

Lara thought briefly about the map, obtained from the journal of one Thomas Knapf – a German missionary who'd been killed in Tanzania in 1849. She'd spent more than a year trying, through various channels, to track it down before Nils had eventually steered her onto the right track. The map that the journal had contained hadn't been Thomas's work. Instead it had been drawn by his cousin, Willem – an adventurer of rather eccentric reputation. For reasons unknown, Willem had sent the map to Thomas with instructions that it be kept safe. It had been a very strange looking map all told, almost obscured by notes scrawled in a crazed and barely translatable demotic script.

"We're over a mile from the spot the map indicated," she pointed out. "The other landmarks it showed were accurate to less than fifty yards."

"Details, details." Nils started forward again, clambering eagerly over the jumble of uneven rocks.

"Slowly Nils," she admonished him. "If you break your ankle I'm not going to be the one who drags your fat arse out of here."

"Bah. I never had you down as a wuss, Lara."

She shook her head wonderingly. "Five minutes ago you were accusing me of deception, theft, betrayal and various other nefarious things."

He made a dismissive gesture. "You know well enough not to take anything I say seriously, eh Lara?"

And that would be the closest thing to an apology she ever got, she thought wryly, moving to follow him. _Never Apologise. Never admit you're wrong_. Abruptly she came to a halt, laying a hand on Nils's shoulder to bring him up short.

"Lara?"

She hesitated. "Do you smell something odd?" Bittersweet and coppery; unpleasantly familiar in a way that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickle. It was so strong she could taste it.

He sniffed at the air. "It's a bit stale. Some rotting vegetation." He shrugged, then made a gesture at one of his sweat-stained armpits. "Course, I'm probably pretty ripe too . . ."

Lara barely heard. Blood. That was what the smell was. An entire slaughterhouse filled with blood.

". . . If you're worried about gas, don't be. Wrong sort of rocks round here. Not a chance of it. You can't really smell gas anyway. That's just an ingredient they add . . ."

She shook her head. The smell was gone, just like that. Suddenly her heart was thudding. Overactive imagination, or something more? Part of her wanted to turn around and get out of there, but Nils was already advancing again. She opened her mouth to tell him to stop, but then shut it again and just followed him.

She thought about Nils's earlier accusation. _When _did_ you turn into a wuss?_

"Whoa there!" Nils stopped abruptly, grabbing hold of the wall before taking a couple of rapid backwards steps and almost landing on top of her. "Jesus."

The maglight beam showed that the cave floor stopped directly in front of him, opening up into a black, bottomless looking pit. 

Lara manoeuvred carefully around Nils's bulk, standing at the pit's edge. The torch beam played on the back wall of the cave, about thirty feet further ahead. As she angled the beam down into the pit the illusion of bottomlessness disappeared. The floor was no more than twenty feet below – though that was plenty far enough if you happened to blunder into it like Nils almost had. It was thick with mud that still looked damp.

Something gleamed in the mud. Lara could feel Nils's breath against the side of her face as he peered over her shoulder in an effort to see better. "Jesus," he repeated.

A skull. There was no getting around that fact. A human skull. 

As she swept the torch beam systematically from side to side she saw more bones too. Lots of them. Most appeared to be broken, and they were scattered hither and thither in a random jumble – not arranged in skeletons. The only way of getting an estimate as to the numbers of dead was through counting skulls, and Lara made twelve. Four of them were distressingly small.

Then she saw a thirteenth skull. This one wasn't human.

A big cat she concluded, after staring at it for several long seconds. It was quite difficult to tell from where she was standing, but it looked on the large side for a leopard – though that was still much more likely than a lion. She blinked in surprise. The torchlight had caught on something in one of its eye sockets – something that scintillated brilliantly.

"Well I'll be . . .." Nils let out a low whistle. "Some kind of burial chamber, do you think?"

"Um?" Lara tore her gaze away from the cat's skull. _What the hell _was_ that in its eye socket?_ "Oh. Erm, it's not typical of the local cultures. Neither the Ovimbundu nor Kimbundu go in for that type of thing historically. Less sure on the Bakongo and some of the smaller tribal groups. It'd be an interesting find if it is." Her earlier unease had returned, redoubled. 

"Move the torch a bit to the left, would you Lar. Thanks." The beam stopped on a length of broken wood. "What would you say that is? Or was? A wooden stake?"

"Perhaps." Her heart was thudding harder. Tied around the wood was what looked like badly rotting rope. As she moved the torch beam some more she spotted another similar length of wood, then another.

She heard a commotion behind her and tore her gaze away. Nils was rooting around in his backpack. He came up with a length of bright blue nylon rope, letting out an exhalation of triumph and tossing the end at her. 

She caught it reflexively. "Be a love and find something to tie that to."

"Nils," she started warningly.

"Oh don't give me that, Lara. I've had enough nagging from the three exes to last a bleeding lifetime. I'm going down there, so don't argue. You get to do all the fun stuff, but not this time. You owe me."

She started to tell him that wasn't what she'd meant. Something about the whole idea of going down into the pit made her very uneasy indeed, though she couldn't for the life of her put it in rational terms. His back was already turned to her though.

A few minutes later she watched him descend rather awkwardly, feeling her gut clench tight with irrational tension. The tension ramped up a notch further as, immediately on reaching the bottom, he leant over and picked up one of the skulls. She had to stifle the urge to shout at him to put it down.

"Interesting, Lara. There a puncture wound here." He held the skull up into her torch beam so she could get a look, sticking his finger through the hole and wiggling it at her. "Pre-mortem possibly, if I had to guess. Reckon it's a sacrifice pit?"

"This is not Rider Haggard, Nils. There's never been any good evidence of human sacrifice in Angola, whatever both sides of the civil war might have put about."

"Well, perhaps there is now," he countered cheerfully. "That'd be something, don't you think?"

Something moved. The shadows across the other side of the pit from where Nils was standing shifted distinctly. Lara's gaze snapped onto that spot, and she had a brief impression of something there, lurking, coiled in on itself and waiting to pounce. She swung the torch beam across to it, her other hand going for the pistol-grip shotgun slung over her shoulder.

Nothing there. Of course.

"What the hell are you doing Lara?" Nils's voice sounded querulous.

"Sorry. Thought I saw something."

"Like what?"

She groped for something that wouldn't sound mildly insane. "See that cat skull over there? Yes, that's the one. I think there might be something stuck in its left eye socket."

"This you mean?" Nils didn't sound particularly interested. "Probably found its way in here after the cave in was unblocked and got stuck. Poor bastard." Nevertheless he bent over and picked it up. Something inside rattled, then fell out, landing in the damp mud with a heavy plop.

Lara strained to see what it was.

"Bloody hell!" Nils lets out an awed breath as he straightened, then repeated it for good measure. "Bloody hell."

"What is it?" she asked.

"Did you know about this Lara? Don't lie to me now." Some of the suspicion from outside was back.

"Know about what?" she snapped. "I can't even see what you've found."

He held something up into the torch beam which scintillated where the light struck it. For an instant it appeared to glow red and Lara jolted hard as she stared at it.

"Only a fucking diamond. Least, I think it's a diamond. A diamond as big as me fucking fist." He coughed slightly, embarrassed by the rather self evident exaggeration. "Almost as big as an eyeball at any rate."

She continued to stare at it – didn't say anything.

"Christ it's beautiful. It's pink, I think. You get pink diamonds right, Lara? Rare. Valuable." When she still didn't respond he looked up at her. "Want to take a look?"

Lara cleared her throat uncomfortably, dragging her gaze away from it. "If you're not afraid I might run off with it and abandon you down there."

He sighed. "You're not going to let me forget about that, are you?" Then, abruptly. "Here, catch."

She jolted in surprise as it arced up towards her, almost but not quite fumbling it.

It was warm to the touch, though that was probably just from Nils holding it, she told herself. And he was right about it being the same size as an eyeball. Almost exactly the same size. The cut was weird, very nearly spherical but with oddly asymmetric facets that sparkled strangely. Her gaze was drawn into it, fascinated. Nils said something, but it was lost in unfathomable distance . . .

_A deep, thrumming roar reverberated through the cave, amplified by the close walls so that it seemed to come from all sides at once, primal in its power. For some reason it filled her with a sense of power and strength – almost a lust. Torch flames flickered, casting ever shifting shadows on the walls, and somewhere ahead somebody screamed. It was a sound of absolute terror and abandonment. _

_Her eyesight penetrated the gloom as if it was bright as noonday sun, and she stared down into the pit. She could smell sweat and shit and blood, sharp and heavy on the air – perfume and drug, both. It dragged her forwards, stirring compulsions that were impossible to resist._

_Faces stared up at her, distorted; twisted. More screams resounded, echoing insanely. Ragged breathing sawed and rasped from a dozen sets of lungs, filled by fear that had gone beyond sanity. The stench of sweat grew even sharper. The compulsion became a hunger more intense than anything that she had imagined possible._

_Twelve people; men, women, and children. Three bound to each of the four wooden stakes that had been driven into the cave floor. They thrashed wildly against their bonds, rope cutting deeply into flesh as they strained, all to no avail, to pull themselves free. The hunger consumed everything else and she launched herself forwards, into the pit as more screams rang out._

_Behind her there was a catastrophically loud, echoing crash that made the entire cave shake . . ._

Something slammed hard into the back of Lara's neck, snapping her out of the vision and dropping her onto her hands and knees. Her hand reflexively clenched tight around the diamond, hard enough that the edges cut into her flesh and drew blood. Temporarily, her vision went entirely black.

Dimly she was aware of someone stepping past her. Her body refused to respond to the instructions of her brain for it to move. 

"Lara?" Nils's voice echoed through the strange roaring in her ears. "Shit . . . who the fuck are . . .."

Unsuppressed automatic gunfire. Even semi-conscious it was unmistakeable, especially up close, jarringly loud and making her ears ring painfully. The bitter sharpness of burnt cordite filled her nostrils and tickled the back of her throat.

Rage exploded through the dazed inertia. A pair of legs loomed directly in front of her, clad in heavy black boots and khaki combat trousers. She kicked out of at them hard, connecting solidly with the back of his knees.

He let out a startled wail as he overbalanced, toppling forwards into the pit. The wail cut off in a very unpleasant sounding crunch a fraction of a second later.

Lara used the wall to lever herself upright, the floor swaying from side to side beneath her feet. Wincing she felt the base of her skull, fingers probing a lump that had swollen to the size of a duck egg. When the floor stopped swaying sufficiently she took a step forward and looked down into the pit.

Too late of course, and nothing to be done. Nils's eyes stared vacantly into space. At least a dozen bullets had hit him in the chest. 

Beside him the angle of his killer's spine suggested he was just as dead.

Swallowing back tears, she turned away, quietly unslinging the shotgun from her back and advancing slowly forward. Cold resolve filled her. Somehow she highly doubted that the man she'd just killed was here alone.

The diamond was still held tightly in one hand, all but forgotten.

**2. Captured.**

Joseph Savimbi stood over the woman's body, sprawled face down in the cracked mud of the dry riverbed.

He frowned as he looked down at her. Four of his men she'd killed. If he closed his eyes he knew he would see Gato, his entire face missing and his brains splattered across the tree trunk behind him.

The diamond had fallen several feet from her left hand and it glittered in the last faint remnants of daylight. He retrieved it quickly, tucking it into a belt pouch. Too much cost, even if it was reputedly priceless, he thought sourly.

She was still breathing shallowly. 

After a moment's pause he stepped forward, treading hard on the small of her back. She didn't move in response, or even make a sound, well and truly unconscious. He unholstered a Russian made Makarov pistol, training it on the back of her skull.

For some reason he hesitated, pursing his lips. _Curiosity killed the cat_, an inner voice warned him.

The voice went unheeded. Leaning forward he used the barrel of his pistol to brush the mat of dark chestnut brown hair – which had worked its way free of her long plait – away from her face. An attractive specimen, part of him noted clinically as he gazed at her profile. Despite the liberal coating of dirt and grazes.

He placed the barrel of the Makarov against her temple. Gently, almost tenderly, he began to squeeze down on the trigger.

Then, abruptly, he blinked in recognition. Of course he shouldn't have been surprised. Vitali had mentioned her – by implication if not explicitly.

After a slight pause, Savimbi holstered his pistol again and straightened. There was a musing look on his face. He'd never been one to let matters of silly personal vengeance and vendetta get in the way of a potential profit.

**3. 'A Game of Death'**

_Flames danced in front of her and she could hear a voice intoning words in a dialect she didn't understand. Wind stirred, seemingly out of nothing, making the surrounding tree tops sway, and she thought she heard something growl in the distance._

_She gazed down at the base of the flames as the weird chanting continued. A sharpened flint had been laid with its tip bathed in the fire, and was now starting to smoke, its edges glowing sullen red._

_The chanting intensified, rising in pitch, and she reached down towards the flint. No, _someone_ reached down – the hand was far too big to be hers. Wrapping the base of the flint in thick, rubbery leaves to prevent its flesh being seared, the hand withdrew the stone from the flames and lifted it so that it hung directly in front of her face._

_She stared at the flint's tip, pointing towards her, directly level with her left eyeball – glowing; smoking. The heat was intense and she could feel sweat pouring down that side of her face. The glowing tip seared an afterimage into her retina as she kept on staring at it unflinchingly. It started to move towards her, closer and closer. _

_Now the chanting sounded hysterical. The flint was less than an inch from her eyeball, but she still couldn't flinch or blink or turn away. As the chanting reached a crescendo it plunged forward . . ._

_Everything went red. There was a hoarse, ragged scream. Not her own scream. Someone male, screaming in agony. Distantly she thought she heard something else, roaring angrily . . ._

A sound close by snapped Lara back into reality. Her breath was coming quickly, and she was sweating profusely.

She squinted, flinching back at the sudden brightness as the cell door was flung open and a torch beam hit her in the face. She heard three distinct sets of footsteps, then the sound of guns being cocked – AK-47 assault rifles had been the norm among the men she'd seen.

"Don't move," a voice said tersely in heavily accented English.

A second or so later someone roughly grabbed her shoulders while someone else leant past her and unhooked the tether that attached her to the cell's back wall. Brutal hands gripped her beneath the armpits and pulled her up to her feet.

"Where are you taking me?" Her voice croaked through under use. How long she'd been in there, alone in the darkness, she had no real idea. If it was two meals a day then she had been there twelve and a half days. But it could have been more and it could have been less.

There was no response to her question. One of the men held her head firmly in place as another pulled a rough cloth bag over it. A hard cuff around the ear was administered for what seemed like no particularly good reason, making her stumble. She fought down the instinctive but futile urge to fight back, knowing that right now it would only get her killed.

They prodded her forward, out of the cell, then marched her down a corridor. The echo of booted footsteps on concrete was only slightly muffled through the hood. 

Passing through another door led them outside. She could tell immediately due to the sudden change of acoustics.

The ground beneath her feet change from concreted to wet and very slippery mud. Either the rainy season had arrived while she'd been locked up, or she was now somehow in the jungled north-east of the country – or quite possibly no longer in Angola at all for all she knew. Very little light penetrated the dense weave of her hood, and the sounds around her – insect life; a crackling fire; occasional low conversation – all contributed to the impression that it was night time.

The route they her took was circuitous, probably intended to leave her disorientated. Her sense of direction was good enough to tell when they looped back on themselves several times, but not quite good enough to keep the route clear in her head. 

Finally they stopped. She was forced to her knees by means of one person pressing down on her shoulders while another trod on the back of her knee to force her legs to buckle. The barrel of one the AK-47's was jabbed into her back. She got the point all right. No sudden movements.

"Take the bag off. I want to see her face." The English of this voice was rather better than the others she'd heard, its accent only very slight.

A second or so later she was once again blinking against the sudden brightness. A man stood in front of her, compact and wiry, dressed in fatigues that might have been army but were more likely an indicator that he was part of some rebel or insurgent faction. He had very dark skin, a shaven head that gleamed ever so slightly beneath a patina of sweat, and almost-black eyes that looked fierce, intense, and very, very clever. She judged that he was somewhere in his late forties, but it was a fit and supremely hard forties.

"You're my host, I take it? I have to confess I don't think much to your idea of hospitality." Her voice functioned slightly better this time, though there was still a rasp to it.

The man gestured to one of the guards flanking her. He grabbed hold of Lara's chin, tilting her head back as if she was a slightly recalcitrant horse. Then he poured a stream of lukewarm water from a canteen approximately in the region of her mouth. She swallowed, grateful despite herself.

The man peered down at her. "You killed four of my men. Considering what some of them wanted to do to you – considering what I could have allowed to happen – I think you'll find my hospitality has been exemplary . . . Lara."

He seemed to be waiting for some kind of response, but none was forthcoming so he went on: "Yes, I know your name. That's one of the main reasons you're still alive. I thought you might be worth something."

"And am I?"

"Not nearly enough, I've begun to think." The smile he flashed her was cold and fleeting. 

"But if you were going to kill me you could have just had someone put a bullet in my head without having to talk to me. Sorry, didn't catch the name there."

His smile broadened. _Oh good, I'm being entertaining. Court-bloody-jester_. "My name is Joseph Savimbi."

"Any relation to old Jonas?" Jonas Savimbi was the former leader of the UNITA rebel movement who'd fought one side of the near constant civil wars that had wracked Angola since its independence from Portugal back in 1975. He'd died back in 2002 to not a lot of national mourning, and since then a fragile peace had just about held.

"If I was do you think I'd be likely to admit it?"

"I don't know. Maybe that's why you're hiding out in this . . ." she looked around for effect ". . . godforsaken shit hole with me for company."

His smile faded abruptly. Lara braced herself for a beating and wondered why the hell she hadn't kept her mouth shut. _For once_.

"Yes, they said you were a cool one, Lara." He stroked his chin, mock contemplative. "But who's to say I'm not going to kill you? Maybe I just like to look my victims in the eyes before I pull their guts out. Or maybe I think that shooting someone in the back of the head just wouldn't be properly sporting."

"Would you like me to beg for my life then?" she asked him wearily. 

Meeting his gaze she got the impression that he was putting on a show or playing a role. The look in his eyes – cautious and warily assessing – didn't quite match up to the outward persona he was trying to project.

"Maybe later." He looked away from her at the sound of approaching footsteps. "Ah, good. Our second guest."

Lara looked on sidelong as a man was forced to his knees beside her. She could see him trembling, and as the bag over his head was pulled off he let out a terrified sounding sob. Looking at him she found herself wondering how the hell he'd managed to get himself into this situation, alongside her. Lanky and flabby around the middle with soft, neatly manicured hands, he peered at his surroundings myopically – a tortoise without a shell. He looked more like a chartered accountant than anything else, totally out of place.

"Ah, Mr. Thompson. How are you finding your stay?" There was a subtle shift in attitude from Savimbi, the performance going into self-parodying overdrive.

'Mr. Thompson' flinched back like a scolded puppy. He stared towards the source of Savimbi's voice, although Lara got the distinct impression he couldn't see anything much more than a couple of feet in front of his face. His mouth worked briefly, but he was too scared to speak.

"No matter. Pleasantries can be dispensed with. I fully understand." Savimbi appeared to be enjoying himself, though the strange distance in his eyes remained. "Now that you're both here I won't have to repeat myself. I do hate repeating myself. I'll be blunt. Your ransoms aren't being paid, so you're both useless to me. I thought you should know."

"But . . . but . . ." Mr. Thompson trailed off with a high-pitched squeaking sound.

"It seems, Mr. Thompson, that you're not quite as essential to Tex-oil's operations in Luanda as you made out. Perhaps that comes as a surprise to you too. I'd offer consolation, but to be honest I'm rather pissed off about it myself and can't be bothered."

He looked towards Lara. "And Lara Croft. Did you know that it is 'not the policy of Her Majesty's government to deal with terrorists'? Not even on behalf of someone who used to be a z-list celebrity, it seems. Tsk."

"Did you try my father?" Her mouth was dry. "I'm sure it counts as a terrible social _faux pas_ to let you daughter die without even trying to put together a ransom."

He chuckled. "I exhausted all the channels I'm willing to waste time pursuing."

"So that's that then?" She felt completely calm as she spoke.

Beside her Mr. Thompson started to cry – low, whimpering, despair filled sobs.

"More or less, but I thought we'd have a bit of fun first. We're sadly lacking in fun –" he looked pointedly towards Lara "– in this godforsaken shit hole."

Mr. Thompson chose that moment to let out a particular piercing whimper, and Savimbi's gaze snapped round on him. "Please Mr. Thompson. Try to pay attention. This affects you too. Or do you prefer Chuck? You know, I always picture Chuck as being a loud, slightly overweight Texan with a Stetson hat and cowboy boots. You really are a disappointment on so many different levels."

Back to Lara. "Anyway, what I thought I'd do is let one of you live. See, the way it is, if I kill both of you I start to look a bit _too_ . . . psychotic for my own good. A bit too ruthless and dangerous. People might actually start making a serious attempt to get rid of me, and I don't want that, do I? Very inconvenient. Likewise, letting both of you go without receiving any compensation is a no-no. I look soft. I look like an _arse_. And I can't be looking an arse, can I?" He cut Lara off as she started to open her mouth. "That was rhetorical, by the way. I don't require an answer. Especially not a _witty_ one."

She closed her mouth and waited for him to reach something that resembled a point. 

"But which to kill, and which to let live? A vexing issue, I'm sure you'll agree. On the one hand Mr. Thompson has been a much more agreeable house guest. He hasn't killed any of my men for starters. But on the other hand, he's such a pointless and contemptible waste of breath." He stroked his chin. "Then I hit upon an idea. A genius idea, if I say so myself. I thought we'd play a game of death."

Silence dragged. Mr. Thompson's sobbing had stopped, but he was now shaking so badly he appeared to be undergoing some kind of fit.

Savimbi looked slightly disappointed not to get more of a reaction. "The rules are very simple. I give Mr. Thompson a pistol with one bullet in it, and he gets ten seconds in which to shoot you in the head, Lara. If, at the end of the ten seconds, you're still alive – for whatever reason – the situation is reversed and you get a go. Once one of you is dead the other walks free. You have my solemn word on that."

"Oh, fuck you," Lara said tiredly. She wondered briefly how far she would get if she launched herself at him. Not very, she was reluctantly forced to conclude.

"If you're wondering why Mr. Thompson gets to go first . . .. Well, as I said. He hasn't killed anyone I consider a friend."

Savimbi made a gesture and suddenly Mr. Thompson was yanked back to his feet by the guards flanking him, his wrists uncuffed. His legs shook to such an extent that it looked like he would collapse the moment they let go of him.

Savimbi drew his pistol from his belt, reversed it and extended it toward him. "Possibly you'll be tempted to try and shoot me instead. I'd advise you to resist that urge."

Mr. Thompson looked at him blankly, as if he didn't understand what was happening.

"Take it." There was zero response. 

"Take it!"

Mr. Thompson's hand shook violently as he finally did as he was told. Lara thought he would drop the pistol even then, but he managed not to.

"Now, point it at her head and pull the trigger."

Mr. Thompson just held the pistol limply and shook. Savimbi grabbed hold of his wrist, forcibly yanking it round until Lara could feel the cool metal of the barrel pressed against her temple. Mr. Thompson's trembling transmitted itself through the gun into her own flesh. 

"Now. You have ten seconds to pull the trigger, Mr. Thompson."

The trembling intensified.

"If she's still alive after ten seconds she gets to shoot you. And, unlike you, she's rather good at that sort of thing. The clock is ticking. I make that three."

It would be so easy to just take the gun off him, she thought. Or would that be regarded as cheating and get her gunned down? In the end all she actually did was look calmly up into Savimbi's face. He acknowledged her with a slightly wry twist of his mouth.

"Four."

"Five."

_Oh for gods sake you idiot, just pull the bloody trigger._

"Six."

"Seven."

Mr Thompson made an incoherent sound. Suddenly his grip on the pistol tightened, the barrel pressing hard into the side of her head. Lara felt something tighten inside her chest. He was going to do it.

"Eight."

Mr. Thompson, his face screwed up, pulled the trigger. The hammer came down. 

The only result was a hollow click. 

He let out a low moan and his legs buckled. The pistol dropped from his limp grip and a dark stain started to spread out across the front of his trousers. Lara simply continued to look at Savimibi's face, not even having flinched.

For a moment Savimbi looked disappointed. It was quickly smoothed away and he smiled wolfishly. "You knew there was no bullet, didn't you?"

Lara just shrugged. Two of the guards had dragged Mr. Thompson back up to his knees. He looked nearly catatonic, completely oblivious to his surroundings. Probably for the best, she thought.

"Bah, I thought you'd be more fun than is."

"Getting old, maybe," she said simply.

"I have to admit I fibbed a little bit earlier on." He scratched his nose. "Both of your ransoms have been agreed. You'll be taken to a handover point, and assuming no one decides to be stupid about it, you're free to go."

Silence lingered. "It's okay," he smirked. "You don't have to thank me."

She barely heard him. Abruptly she blurted: "W-Who paid my ransom?" She could feel herself colouring even as the words came out.

"Was it daddy do you mean?" The way he said it made the feelings of embarrassment even worse. "I don't know. I don't care about the providence of the money. I just care about the money."

He made a gesture and the guards flanking her pulled her up to her feet, herding her towards the door. Just as she was about to leave Savimbi called after her. "Oh, by the way. Thank you for the diamond. Saved me a lot of trouble that did."

**4. Walk Free**

It was after midnight. The mud of the dirt track was ankle deep, sucking at her feet hungrily with each step. Behind her the headlights of the Toyota pickup lit the way ahead in stridently harsh white light. She knew that several guns were trained on her back, but she kept her gaze fixed forward, her step steady.

Beside her Chuck Thompson stumbled, falling silently to his knees in the middle of the road.

He'd spent the entire hour plus journey in the back of the pickup with his head down between his knees, staring unspeakingly at the floor, entirely unresponsive. Now, as she laid a hand on his shoulder, he flinched away, apparently unable to even bring himself to look at her.

"You have to get up," she said as he made no attempt to move. 

He responded to her words as if he'd been slapped. 

She knelt down beside him. "Look, I don't blame you for pulling the trigger."

He still didn't look at her, so she continued. "Anyone else would have done the same. They might not like to think so, but when confronted with the reality – your life or a stranger's life – it becomes very simple. You pull the trigger. It's nothing to be ashamed of. You did what you had to do to survive."

An inarticulate sob emerged from his throat. "Please . . . get away from me."

She gripped his arm firmly, not letting him shrug her off this time. "Come on. You have to get up. All we have to do is walk a few hundred yards together. If you stay here – if you screw this up for them – they'll shoot you. However you're feeling now I know that isn't what you want."

When he still didn't give any sign of having understood, she pulled him up hard enough that he risked having his shoulder dislocated if he tried to resist. Finally, like a recalcitrant child, he came free of mud with a wet sucking noise. Up close he smelt foul, bitterly pungent sweat and worse. His breathing seemed thready and too quick, but at least he didn't immediately collapse again.

"Now walk." She spoke firmly, hoping to get him moving by tone of voice even if he was too far gone to understand her words. "One foot in front of the other. Move."

With her still holding onto him they started haltingly forwards again. He seemed to be operating on a kind of autopilot, but at least he was walking.

It began to rain, warm fat droplets of water splashing on her face, intermittently at first, but with ever increasing frequency until torrents were pouring down all around her. It soaked her to the skin in seconds, the incessant drumming drowning out the sounds of the jungle around them, loud on the unseen foliage overhead as if the world had suddenly acquired a roof.

Through the downpour she was surprised to hear Mr. Thompson speak, unprompted. "I . . . I can manage myself."

For a moment she hesitated, then nodded reluctantly, releasing her hold on his arm. He immediately veered away from her, putting several paces of space between them. This time he kept on walking at least. She stifled a sigh. 

A bend in the road took them out of the pickup's headlight beams, and the sudden darkness was shocking – cave-like. A couple more minutes walking in the downpour and the sucking ankle deep mud led to another bend, and there in front of them was another parked truck, its headlights brilliant beacons guiding the way home.

Lara squinted into the brightness, seeing the silhouettes of four figures waiting for them. Three of them immediately started forward as they came into view, rushing to Mr. Thompson's side, talking over each other in what seemed like a competition as to who could be the most solicitous. She heard him break down into harsh, wracking sobs, but ignored him. He'd be okay now.

The fourth man simply stood stock-still, shoulders hunched against the rain, hands in his pockets, beside the truck, waiting. For her. 

He was a bald, slightly stocky man in his middle years with a neatly trimmed moustache. Rainwater soaked his clothing – an old and rather unsuitable for the conditions safari suit – running down the sides of his head in rivulets and dripping from the ends of moustache. Somehow he managed to appear not bedraggled but serene, apart and almost inured to the downpour even as it soaked him. As he looked at her his expression was impassive.

She came to a halt a few feet in front of him, recognition only belatedly dawning. "Charlie."

"Hello Lara." Charles Kane cracked a smile, wrinkling his nose as he stepped forward and hugged her in greeting. "Christ girl, you stink."

**5. Happenstance**

"I'm guessing that you being here in Luanda isn't just a lucky happenstance, Charlie." Lara took a careful sip from the bone china teacup.

They were sitting in wicker chairs arranged on a veranda overlooking expansive and neatly manicured gardens. The rain clouds had broken a couple of hours ago and they were being treated to a sunset as magnificent as any she could ever recall seeing, the western sky a blazing riot of colour.

She placed the teacup down on the low table between them. Her hair was still slightly damp from the shower, hanging loose around her shoulders. She was wearing loose linen trousers, flat-heeled sandals, and a plain white blouse, managing a cool elegance which was several thousand miles away from 24 hours ago.

It was all vaguely nineteenth-century colonial, she thought as she studied her surroundings. Very Victorian, and civilised to the point desperation. And, of course, completely illusory. Behind the high, perfectly maintained shrubbery, the British consular property was surrounded by walls topped with barbed-wire and motion sensors. Guard dogs and security staff armed with submachine-guns patrolled inconspicuously. The harsher realities of life in Luanda might look at first glance to be an entire world away, but you could hit them easily enough with a casually lofted stone.

"You guess correctly." Charles Kane looked at her strangely – almost calculatingly. 

It had been over two years since she'd seen him last and something had changed. She wasn't entirely sure she liked it, whatever it was. "Well, thank you. Again. How much did I cost you, out of interest?"

He gestured vaguely. "Oh, not too much, all things considered. Mr. Savimbi knows to be realistic in his demands."

"How nice of him." Her tone was dry. "Regardless, I'll pay back the ransom and any expenses incurred."

"Lara, it's not my money, so I don't give a damn. Anyway, I'm sure we've got insurance to cover it." We, in this case, referred to SIS – the Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6. Notionally Charlie had retired more than ten years ago, although she'd come to the conclusion since that retirement was a somewhat hazy concept as far as SIS was concerned. "If you do feel you owe anything, I'd much rather accept payment in favour."

_Ah, so that was it._ She nodded cautiously. "Of course Charlie. As always, you just have to ask." 

She found herself recollecting the occasions when they'd done each other favours in the past – thoughts lingering particularly on a Russian submarine base in the Baltic. Each time had definitely proven interesting – in the most Chinese sense of the word. Maybe her sense of adventure was fading with the years because she found herself feeling decidedly apprehensive all of a sudden.

He took another sip from his tea, his gaze wandering past her, back to the sunset. "Well, that's for the future. Not something to concern ourselves with for the moment."

"To be honest I'd rather know now."

He let out a puffing breath and shook his head. "There's nothing I need now, really Lara. It's just . . .. Maybe I'm getting old – older – but I see shadows looming in the future. Shadows that I'm going to need help dealing with." He forced a brittle and unconvincing looking smile. "But, as I say, enough of that. How are you feeling? You're looking a little . . . strung."

"Lack of sleep is all. Nothing to worry about. I'll catch up over the next few days."

She saw from his frown that he didn't believe her. "I know someone who might be able to help. Someone you can talk to in total confidence if you need help dealing with the trauma . . ."

She placed her teacup down on the table between them, then sat back, eyes hardening. "I'm fine."

"You're not made of stone, Lara. It isn't a sign of weakness to seek help. It's a sign of weakness not to."

She snorted. "Sometimes you really do talk bollocks, Charlie. I'm fine, honestly."

He grimaced, but covered it quickly. "Good. Then I assume you'll be wanting to return to England? You won't have the slightest inclination to go after Mr. Savimbi, for example."

For a time they held each others gaze, saying nothing – measuring; challenging.

"He killed a friend of mine." Her voice was calm, but her eyes suggested something entirely different.

"Nevertheless, you're not going after him. And be assured, I'm speaking in an official capacity here."

"Are you giving me an order, Charlie?" Suddenly Lara sounded amused, though again her eyes spoke of other emotions.

"Feel free to take it that way." Flat and emphatic.

She studied him closely. "He's useful to you then. Does your dirty work on occasion."

A tiny movement of his head that might have been a nod conceded the point. "And better the devil we know, too. Savimbi has a modicum of good sense. If he's gone those who replace him are unlikely to display the same level of . . . restraint."

She felt sudden anger. "That's interesting logic, Charlie. Do you think we would have quite the same magnanimous attitude if he was operating closer to home? In London, say. Would we shrug our shoulders and say 'no point in arresting him, he'll only be replaced by somebody worse' then? Out here it's okay though, because we don't have to pick up the tab."

"Oh, don't be naïve," he snapped.

With an effort Lara forced herself calm again. "Don't worry Charlie. I won't go after him." Then, almost exaggeratedly, "I never had any intention of going after Mr. Savimbi."

The way he looked at her suggested a certain amount of scepticism on his part. 

She smiled sweetly. "So how _did_ you happen to find me, Charlie? You didn't say."

He offered no response, draining the contents of his teacup.

Understanding dawned. It had been knocking around, half formed, in the back of her head for a while now. "It was Vitali, wasn't it? You were following Vitali."

"Vitali?" The flicker in his eyes as good as confirmed her guess though.

"Vitali Cherno. Russian billionaire. Owns Yukol oil, among other things," she said dryly. "You would think a spy would have learned to lie more convincingly over the course of . . . what is it now? Twenty years?"

"Twenty-five." He exhaled, seeming to realise he wasn't going to allowed to wriggle off the hook. "Ah yes, that Vitali. You have to understand that I am not telling you this, Lara."

"Oh, absolutely."

"Well then," he harrumphed. "Maybe you know this. Maybe you don't. But the activities of a number of oil companies here in West Africa have, over the last few years, become of growing interest to us. Since the West realised the true scope of the off shore oil fields here, everyone's been looking at this place askance. The American and European companies see a ready made alternative to the Middle East and the Caspian fields. The Russians see a rival to their new found profits. There's a war going on, Lara, and I don't mean the one up on the Congo border."

Her expression showed distaste. "Angola should be the richest country in Africa, the natural resources it has. But look at it, Charlie. Look over the walls. Nearly thirty years of civil war, on and off, and still one of the lowest average life expectancies on the planet. And now that there're finally some signs of stability all we're really interested in is making sure we get a proper cut, isn't it? Screw everything else."

"Such is life. I thought you were more of a realist, Lara. Not one of those simple-minded leftists."

"Right." She kept her expression carefully neutral.

"Anyway, all that crap aside, Tex-oil brought the single biggest oil platform on the planet on line a couple of months back, despite Yukol's best efforts to get the project sidelined in parliament for the next decade. Whispers reached us that Yukol weren't simply going to take this lying down, and when Mr. Cherno himself showed up in town . . .. I hardly need to say that it started some alarm bells ringing, do I?"

"He approached me, which I'll assume you're fully aware of. Vitali I mean."

His expression showed no hint of surprise. "We were slightly puzzled by that, I have to admit. You were looking for, what; something Thomas Knapf's journals pointed you too?"

Lara tried not to show how startled she was. "I suppose you can tell me what I had for breakfast every day this past year too."

"No. Just the past month and a bit since you met with Vitali."

"And here I was under the misapprehension that you rescued me because you liked me."

"Don't be silly Lara." It was said with a perfectly straight face, though his expression quickly became rueful. "What did you expect to find, if I might ask? Analysis came up blank on anything that might conceivably be of interest to someone like Vitali."

She wetted her lips, mulled things over, and eventually settled on a carefully emphasised version of the truth. "Private belongings of Thomas Knapf's cousin, Willem. Maps of his travels that I had reason to believe might be . . . interesting to me. Possibly some alchemical notes – he dabbled a bit in some rather weird stuff did Willem. Maybe some minor treasures too; a crystal skull the match of one I already have in my collection; a couple of original sketches by Pope Alexander VI's chief architect; an old and very rare 16th century text on witchcraft."

"A treasure map pointing to more treasure maps?"

Lara laughed at his nonplussed expression. "It's the act of uncovering something, Charlie, not what you actually find. The process of solving the puzzle has always been what compelled me, and Knapf has definitely proved an interesting puzzle up to now."

"So what, out of that little lot, did Vitali want?"

"None of it as far as I can make out. He claimed he was seeking something else he thought might be in the area, and offered a very substantial sum of money to get first refusal on anything I might uncover. I turned him down – very politely. Don't look at me like that Charlie. I can be polite when I want to be."

"What was the something else?"

"He didn't say. I actually got the impression that he genuinely wasn't sure what he was looking for."

"Oh?"

"A boastful man, Vitali. A braggart. Not someone who is likely to be coy when the opportunity to appear clever presents itself. Anyway, before Savimbi's goons ambushed me and Nils, we discovered a cave." The memory of it made Lara shudder. "Amid a lot of bones we found what we took to be a diamond. A pink one, about the size of my eyeball."

Charlie let out a low whistle. "And you think that was what Vitali was after?"

"It was the only thing we found in the area. The location where the Knapf cache was supposed to have been hidden had been plundered – if there was ever anything there to start with. Anyway, Savimbi's got it now. I'm sure it'll keep him in Kalashnikovs for a while."

"Why would Vitali want a diamond?" Charlie's sounded slightly perplexed.

"I don't know. Maybe he's got himself a girl he wants to impress. That thing would make one hell of an engagement ring." She recalled what she'd felt when holding it with a tiny shudder. The emphasis very definitely being on _hell_.

He looked equal parts annoyed and disappointed.

"Not everything can be part of some grand conspiracy you know."

He shook his head. "We're missing something here, Lara. We have to be."

Privately she agreed, though she couldn't begin to imagine what. "Savimbi was working for Vitali, wasn't he?"

Charlie nodded after a long pause. "We tracked them both to a meet. A handover of some kind we think."

"Then why don't you ask Savimbi what's going on. You implied he sometimes proves useful to you? Exert some pressure on him."

"It's not that kind of relationship."

She bit back her immediate frustrated response, turning her attention back towards the now fading sunset. Eventually, after several minutes, she spoke again. "Oh, by the way. Something else I was meaning to ask. Who was the other hostage? Mr. Thompson I mean."

She was peripherally aware of Charlie standing up. "A Tex-oil executive. In charge of R&D I think. Yukol running more interference, obviously, though of course we don't have any legally conclusive proof on that. His ransom was considerably more costly than your own."

"Ah." 

"He'll be fine, if you were worried. Just a bit stressed out by the whole ordeal. Not everyone is as calm about this sort of thing as you are."

"Some people are more sane, eh Charlie? So, what's going to be done about Vitali?" She kept her tone light; casual.

Charlie paused for so long she didn't think he would answer her at all. "Vitali's being taken care of. We have a team tracking his every move. Now forget about him and try to catch up with some of that lost sleep." 

He turned and walked back into the house.

**6. Bad Dreams**

"I haven't been able to sleep at all, Bryan. Not a single wink. I keep on seeing her, kneeling in front of me. So damn calm." Chuck Thompson paced the office in ever decreasing circles, pausing every now and again to wipe the sweat from his face with a large, bony looking hand. "Infuriating bitch."

Bryan – Chuck Thompson's special assistant – made a noise of sympathetic agreement. Bryan was a big, blandly handsome man who filled his immaculate Gucci suit out rather impressively. He looked ever so slightly plastic. Perhaps it was his hair, which somehow managed to look solid.

"She's going to tell someone, I know it. She'll tell them what I did. That I tried to kill her. She'll lie. You know what women are like. Can't keep their mouths shut for love or money. Not even for a moment." There was a crack from the bug zapper just inside the window as a large fly flew into it. Chuck span and stared at in wide-eyed fright.

"I'm sure no one would believe her for a moment, sir," Bryan assured him, moving smoothly round to the window and shutting it without needing to be asked. "Not against your word."

"You think? You can say that for sure Bryan? Because me, I think they'll believe her. She's a pretty one. They always believe the pretty ones. I can hear them. Talking about me behind my back. Calling me a coward. Laughing at me." He plonked himself down gracelessly behind his desk, his head coming to rest in his hands.

"I could do something about her, if you like sir," Bryan offered neutrally. "I can make sure she doesn't talk to anyone, if you think it will help with your peace of mind."

He peered up at Bryan through his fingers. "I can't sleep. I just can't get it out of my head." A shudder wracked his shoulders. "Do you know what it feels like, Bryan? Not being able to sleep?"

"No sir, I don't."

"It feels awful."

"You just have to give the word," Bryan re-emphasised. "It will all go away. I know the perfect people to take care of it."

Chuck Thompson hesitated for a long while, his eyes filled with silent anguish. Finally he lowered his hands from his face, fingers tapping a skittering, arrhythmic beat on the desktop. "Do something permanent. I don't think I'll be able to sleep again until I know she can't spread any more lies about me."

* * *

_Blood spurted, filling her throat with its hot saltiness._

_She bit down harder, tearing into her prey, powerful neck muscles twisting from side to side as she ripped off chunks of hot, still quivering flesh, swallowing them greedily. The hunger was ravenous – a thumping, pounding force of inconceivable power – and she lost herself in it, claws tearing into the fresh carcass beneath her._

_How long it was before the scream penetrated the delirium, she couldn't begin to guess. Her head snapped up, fixing on the source. A face stared at her from the doorway, drawn tight with terror. Everything was tinged with red, as if she was viewing the world through a camera lens smeared in blood._

_A low growl resonated in the back of her throat. The face disappeared from view._

_For a moment she just stared after it. Then, almost lazily, she moved to pursue, letting her senses guide her._

_Dank, rusting metal. Pipes gurgling incessantly. The low tumult of machinery around her on all sides, and in the distance a siren, blaring stridently. In her nostrils, the reek of blood and fear. Then footsteps rising over the cacophony, sprinting away from her; frantic, wheezing, terrified breath. Pungent sweat and thudding heartbeat. A terrible mix of the hunger and pure, savage joy rose within her as she quickened her pace to a steady lope, closing rapidly in on her frightened prey._

_A corner was rounded. Her prey wailed as its foot caught on something and it sprawled headlong on the metal floor. Closing in she savoured the wailing tenor of the screams. The screams degenerated into strangled sobbing as it caught sight of her again, a ghost in the darkness. She pounced, and once again there was the bitter-sweetness of blood, though it only inflamed her addiction._

Lara jerked violently back to wakefulness. She was drenched in sweat, the night air stiflingly humid and the bed sheets twisted in knots around her.

For a time she lay there, heart hammering. It wasn't fear though. The dream hadn't felt like a nightmare, despite its content. She gulped heavily, kicking off the tangled sheets and rolling out of bed before padding over to the balcony. A warm breeze stirred the air turgidly, but brought no relief from either the heat or humidity.

No, somehow the dream had been . . . _pleasant_. More than pleasant. Almost erotic.

**7. News**

"News, Charlie?" Lara looked up from where she sat cross-legged on the bed, reading a two day old newspaper. Overhead a rotary fan whirred quietly, though it did little more than stir the turgidly humid air. Out of the window storm clouds were gathering, the light grey and diffuse.

He just grimaced.

"Bad, by your expression." 

"When is it anything else?" He sat down opposite her, looking at her in a way that made her feel slightly uneasy. She couldn't quite pinpoint the reasons why. "As you get older you come to realise that every silver lining has a cloud." His fingers came up to stroke his moustache – a habitual tic.

"You want to share? Or are you just seeking the undoubted pleasure of my company."

His smile was so fleeting it was hardly there at all. He half shook his head but didn't say anything.

She fixed him with a steady look. "You need that favour you mentioned, sooner than you said. Don't you?"

"No, no. Nothing like that." The relief in his expression was undoubted. _Bullet dodged_.

Her curiosity was suddenly intensely piqued. "So what? Do I have to break out the thumb screws?"

"It's about Vitali. In a manner."

Lara froze. "What happened?" She tried to keep her voice casual, but doubted that Charlie was fooled. He'd known her since she was a child, and she wasn't sure she'd ever managed to lie to him successfully – not even once.

"You know that I said we had a team tracking his every move?"

"They lost him," she said flatly.

"Not . . . as such. Shortly after we tracked his meet with Savimbi he paid a visit to this . . ." a vague, uncomfortable waving gesture. "Witch Doctor type." It was said with distaste. "That's a bit politically incorrect now, isn't it? Shaman? Wise Man? Complete fucking charlatan?" Lara jolted fractionally. It was very rare to hear Charles Kane swear – a sure sign of his agitation. "Well, you know what I mean."

"Uh-huh." She gestured, slightly impatiently, for him to go on.

"According to our surveillance team, Vitali showed this witch doctor fellow an item that resembled a large gem or chunk of crystal – possibly that pink diamond you described. Vitali and said witch doctor conferred for a while, though about what is unclear. The parabolic mike threw a bender at exactly the wrong moment. Then Vitali purchased something. Ritual gear: animal blood; various herbs; assorted other junk." He shook his head. "After Vitali departed, his bodyguards moved in and shot the witch doctor. Over thirty bullets at point blank range. Extremely dead. Apparently bad juju is no match for an Uzi 9mm."

Lara blinked. "Then what happened?" she managed after a moment's pause.

He lifted an eyebrow. "That isn't enough for you? A man shot dead in cold blood, and you want more?"

She stifled a sigh. "I don't want more, Charlie. But I know there is more. I know you, and I know more than enough about this bloody silly game you like to play." Abruptly she uncrossed her legs and laid the newspaper aside. She leant forward until their faces were separated by less than a foot, her eyes locking hard with his. "So stop being evasive and spit it out. What happened with Vitali?"

Charlie was silent for several seconds. "He went back to the Yukol offices, had a hooker flown in, and has probably spent the last twelve hours shagging and snorting coke."

Lara flopped back on the bed and made a loud exasperated noise. "Feel free to reinterpret my question in whatever manner it takes to get you to tell me what the hell happened, and is obviously troubling you."

After a moment he cracked a half smile and relented. "A couple of Vitali's underlings – two of his go to guys for 'special' measures; real nasty bastards – flew out by helicopter to the new Tex-oil platform off the coast. Radio contact with the platform was lost a short time later."

_Dank, rusting metal. Pipes gurgling incessantly. The low tumult of machinery around her on all sides. In her nostrils, the reek of blood and fear. Then footsteps, sprinting away from her; frantic, wheezing, terrified breath. Pungent sweat and thudding heartbeat. A terrible mix of hunger and joy rising within her as she closed rapidly in on her frightened prey . . ._

"Lara?"

She jolted out of the dream memory at the sound of Charlie's voice, momentarily disoriented.

"Lara, are you okay?"

Her heart was beating faster than it should have been and she thought she could taste blood in her mouth. Again she found the sensation far from unpleasant. She took a deep breath. "Fine."

"You don't look it."

She read the implicit question. "Just a flashback, Charlie. Just a flashback. You were telling me about the Tex-oil platform."

"Have you thought any more on my earlier suggestion?" he pressed her.

"About the trauma eval, Charlie?" She just snorted. "People have got to make a living I guess. Now stop dodging. Like I said, I'm fine. F-I-N-E. See?"

He bit something back. "Right." There was a long hesitation, which she didn't rise to. "So, like I was saying. The platform. Have you seen photographs of it, by the way? It's not like any oil rig I've seen before. A huge thing. Absolutely massive, like a giant steel insect sprouting out of the sea. Or a spider. Yes, perhaps a spider is more appropriate." He looked slightly embarrassed all of a sudden "Sorry, I digress. No one was answering the radio, so Tex-oil sent a chopper out to take a look. They lost contact with that too."

"What happened to it?"

"Did it crash, you mean? We don't know. It just vanished. Might have made it to the platform for all we know." Now embarrassment was giving way to low grade anger, though where it was directed Lara couldn't yet tell. "We persuaded our American friends to re-task one of their spy satellites to take a look."

"And?" Lara prompted when it started to look like Charlie had fallen into some kind of reverie.

"Lots of rather embarrassed muttering about technical difficulties and how that's never happened before, honest. A big fat zero with regards for useful intelligence."

Suddenly the blood taste was back, stronger than ever, coppery sweet and metallic. She thought briefly that she could smell something like pennies clenched in a sweaty hand, but it dissipated when she tried to concentrate on it.

"We – no, no, make that I – sent in a six man team to check matters out," Charlie said quietly. "Stupid in hindsight. Damn, damn stupid."

"You lost contact with them too, didn't you?"

He sighed, seeming almost to collapse in on himself like a balloon with the air let out of it. "It . . . it looks that way."

She closed her eyes. "I'm sorry Charlie. Truly sorry. Were they people you knew?"

"Not . . . not close friends. But yes, some of them I knew."

She touched the back of his hand gently but said nothing. Sometimes there simply wasn't anything to say. After a time she rose and wandered across to the window, looking out at the low grey clouds – ominous and brooding. _What have I managed to unleash?_

"What are you thinking Lara? What do you know that you haven't told me?"

She jolted slightly at the intrusion into her thoughts but didn't look back at him. "What do I know? Nothing, Charlie. That's the problem, isn't it?"

"Then tell me what you suspect." There was an edge to his voice. "I can tell you suspect something. Don't hold back on me."

She gritted her teeth. What, in the end, did she suspect? All she had were nebulous fears and vague flashes of images she couldn't make sense of. Nothing that she could put properly into words. 

"What do I suspect?" She shook her head in frustration. "I'm not . . .. I don't know. You want me to say I think there was something bad in the diamond? That I think Vitali let it out. That, contrary to what you said earlier, bad juju pisses all over anything as simple as an Uzi 9mm?" She looked at him over her shoulder. "You don't want me to say that Charlie. How is that going to look when you have to write it up in a report?"

He snorted. "Does this stuff always follow you around? Honestly, you're like some kind of Jonah."

For a moment she kept looking at him. Then, internally, almost without thinking about it, a decision was made. She started walking towards the bedroom door.

"Where are you going?"

"Sorry. Got to dash, Charlie." Her tone was almost breezy.

"Oh?" He looked nonplussed by her response.

"Doctor's appointment," she said blandly.

**8. The Doctor**

"Come in. Come in. The door is open."

Lara pushed down the simmering feelings of tension and did as the richly mellifluous voice bid her. Inside, the apartment was tastefully minimalistic, done out in stark whites and pale, polished woods. A modern laptop sat on a polished white worksurface. Air conditioning whispered quietly. As long as she didn't look out of the window she could just have easily been in uptown New York as Luanda.

The man she was there to see stood in the middle of the room, his pose relaxed. He was tall and wore an open-necked shirt and slacks. Tinted circular glasses sat on the bridge of his nose, and a hint of an amused smile traced across his lips as he looked at her.

"You're 'Doctor' Serengo?" she asked.

A minute nod of confirmation was all the answer he gave.

"I have to confess that this is not quite what I was expecting."

His slight smile broadened into a grin. "A lot of people say that to me. You on the other hand, Ms. Croft, are everything I was expecting and so much more." He extended a supple hand, which she accepted.

They walked across the room to a pair of sculpted metal chairs in front of a blind-covered window. "Please, Ms. Croft take a seat."

"Call me Lara."

As she sat down he folded himself smoothly into the seat opposite her. "Well then, Lara. I can see from your eyes that you have a problem you believe I can help you with. I would offer you a drink . . .."

She started to shake her head.

". . . but from what I know of you I doubt that you'll accept." He smiled again, and despite herself Lara found herself relaxing somewhat. "Now tell me what you have come to tell me. I also doubt that you have small talk in mind, much as it might be a pleasant way to pass the time."

After a short hesitation she told him about the cave. About the bones and manacles and the cat's skull. About the pink diamond that had sat in its eye socket. She didn't mention what had happened since, with the oil platform, but from the look he got in his eyes as she spoke she thought he understood well enough.

When she had finished he said a strange word and she blinked, before repeating it. Then, questioningly, trying to untangle the derivations, "Forva – Werewolf? Sorry, what language . . .?"

"Not wolf." He grinned, though there was no humour to it. "Predator. Shape changer. A . . . sorcerer, deluded by lust for power and immortality into binding himself, through an appropriate receptacle, together with a primal animal spirit. A _hungry_ animal spirit."

_Someone, ritually burning there left eye out with a red hot flint blade._

Lara weighed this up. She chose her words carefully. "All I really want to know, Dr. Serengo, is one thing. How do I kill it?"

There was a long pause. The light reflected in Serengo's glasses, turning them to mirrored discs in which she could see her face reflected. "Kill it? Lara . . . my dear. You have heard the old saying I presume. Diamonds are . . .."

"A girl's best friend?" she interjected dryly.

Doctor Serengo chuckled. "Well, yes. That too. But I was going to say 'forever'."

**9. Departure**

"Lara?" Charles Kane peered blearily at the face in front of him. It was raining heavily – a steady, incessant drumming. Visibility was down to a few yards, the world wearing a chaste veil of silver-grey.

There was no preamble. "I'm going out to the platform. Tonight." 

"Lara?" he repeated, wiping a hand across his face. He shook his head in effort to clear the effects of his afternoon nap. Then, when his brain caught up with his hearing. "What? Are you nuts?"

"I think we established that a long time ago in our relationship Charlie. Now are you going to let me in, or do I have to stand here dripping on your doorstep?"

He grunted and stepped aside. "Come in and drip on my carpet instead."

Following her through into the main living area, he said. "You're serious about this, aren't you?"

She sighed. "I'd have to have a pretty poor sense of humour to think I was being funny."

Charlie shook his head resignedly and plonked himself down gracelessly on a rather threadbare looking sofa. A lot less plush than the consular property, she noted. "And you want my help. That's why you're here telling me this."

Lara had moved across the room to stand staring of the window, gazing at the falling rain. "Please. I could do with some equipment. The best you can drum up at this notice."

"Lara, have you really considered this? What you're doing . . ."

She looked back at him. "Charlie, I don't need to hear this."

"No, Lara? Well I think you do. And if you want my help you're damn well going to hear it."

"Charlie, please . . .."

"I sent in a six man commando unit, Lara. These guys are good. I mean _really_ good. In fact I feel pretty damn confidant in saying there's no one in the world better at what they do."

"I don't doubt it."

"_And_ these guys had state of the art op tech. Bleeding edge stuff. A damn sight better than I'm going to be able to get for you by tonight. Didn't help them though. As far as we've been able to ascertain they are now all very, very dead. Everyone on that goddamned platform is. Why the hell is it going to turn out any different with you, Lara? What makes you so bloody special? Yes, you're good at what you do. But you're not that good." The last residue of the nap had well and truly gone and he could feel a vein in his temple throbbing.

"They didn't know what they were up against." Her voice was whisper-soft

"And you do now?"

She nodded. "I think I do."

"Well congratu-fucking-lations. When you get yourself killed I'm sure it'll be a great relief to us all that you knew what it was that killed you."

"I'm doing this Charlie. It's not up for discussion."

He gave an exasperated hiss. "I didn't go to the trouble of springing you from Savimbi just to have you run off on a bloody suicide mission. Whatever's out on that platform is stuck there. Leave it. It's not your problem. It's my problem and Tex-oil's problem and the Angolan government's problem, and it's not as if it can do any more harm than it has already done."

She spoke calmly, patiently. "The Angolan government aren't going to just stand by and do nothing. Tex-oil are not going to simply up and abandon their investment. You're not going to accept the death of six of your men. And Vitali isn't going to let go and be a good boy now that he's had a taste of what he's bungled his way into finding. I've thought about it. Tried to find a way out. But it needs to be dealt with now, in this one window of opportunity we have before someone else does something very stupid."

"By you."

"By me," she agreed.

"And this isn't something very stupid?"

A shrug. "Maybe it is. But if I go out alone what does anyone lose?"

Charlie gritted his teeth in frustration. "No Lara. I won't help you. You want to get yourself killed then you do it without my assistance."

There was a long, echoing pause. Rain drummed hard on the roof. Finally she turned around fully and looked at him – coolly and levelly. "Well that's fine Charlie. You do as your conscience dictates. But I'm still going out there. And when I do get myself killed, you'll know that you could have helped me if you'd wanted to – could have perhaps made a difference – and chose not to."

There was a gaping silence. Then, abruptly, he laughed. "Jesus Christ, Lara. I'd somehow managed to forget what an utter bitch you can be."

"Must be my pretty face," she murmured.

"All right. All right." He threw up his hands. "I'll help. But I'm going with you."

She looked him up and down, fixing eventually on his waistline – not quite as trim as it had been even two years ago. "Oh, give it a rest Charlie. Please."

**10. Hunting Ground.**

"She's moving."

Grayson, the hit squad leader, watched Lara through night vision binoculars – a lone stick figure dressed in black. She was prepping a small motorised dingy in the secluded, rain-lashed natural harbour a hundred or so yards below his position.

"Her SIS tails don't seem much bothered by what she's doing," the first voice continued.

"Look at the dingy." Grayson told him. "Military issue. They gave it to her. Of course they're not bothered. They're fully aware of what's going on."

The dingy pulled away from the beach, floundering briefly in the surf before stabilising and picking up speed as it got further out from shore.

"We've got a steady signal on the tracking device, sir," a second voice informed him calmly.

Grayson lowered the binoculars. "Okay people. Amputate the tails. Then we move in and take her on the platform. We're not getting paid by the hour here."

* * *

Lara's footsteps echoed on the metal, disturbingly loud in her ears for all her efforts at stealth. Machinery clanked and whirred, and pipes gurgled to form an incessant, throbbing wall of background noise. For all the noise though, she formed the uncomfortable impression that she was the only living thing left here.

Something clanked hollowly in the distance, making her jolt. _Or one of the only things_.

Her tongue flicked out nervously to moisten lips that felt painfully dry. She was wearing a skin tight black wetsuit, her eyes concealed behind the lenses of nightvison goggles. A marine service issue MP5 10mm submachine-gun was carried at the ready.

The door at the end of the corridor she was walking down hung ajar. She could hear machinery throbbing beyond it. As she got closer to the door she could see that it was covered in tarry-looking handprints. Blood, though the nightvision goggles drained away its colour, making it appear black.

Subconsciously holding her breath, Lara levered the door open with the barrel of the MP5. She checked the motion sensor hanging from her belt. Nothing, though Charlie had cautioned her not to rely on it.

Swiftly she rolled through, sweeping the MP5 to cover each of the room's corners as she came up. Empty.

It was some kind of control room. There was blood everywhere. It was as if someone had gone wild with several tins of paint, splattering it in mad sweeps over every available surface. Frenzied patterns smeared and snaked haphazardly across the metal floor. Dials and monitor screens were almost totally obscured, and the windows – overlooking the main helipad – were covered in drips and splatters and spray. 

As she walked tentatively forward something dripped on her shoulder.

Her gaze snapped upwards, along with the MP5's barrel. Something large and shadowy loomed above her. There was a tiny flicker of movement.

Instinctively she pulled the trigger, leaping backwards as she did so. Although the gunfire was muffled by a suppresser it still sounded startlingly loud in the close confines.

She hit the looming shape with at least four bullets. It didn't react in the slightest.

A breath of pent up tension escaped as a gasp of relief. It was a dead body, hung up in the rafters. An arm flopped down, just a few inches from her head. Periodically blood dripped from its fingertips. She struggled to calm her breathing.

She reached out and touched the dangling arm. It was cold.

Tentatively she gave the arm a tug. The body didn't budge. Gritting her teeth, she pulled harder. Abruptly she felt the weight of the body start to shift and slide, and jumped back swiftly. It fell to the floor with an unpleasantly meaty thud – a side of beef being carelessly manhandled in an abattoir.

Briefly she stared down at it before turning away quickly, bile rising up into her throat. She leant across one of the blood splattered control panels, struggling not to vomit. It – he – had been half eaten. Both legs were missing, torn off at the hips, and the abdominal cavity had been ripped open and hollowed out. She'd gotten only a brief suggestion of the remainder of the damage, but even that was far more than she'd wanted.

_Dragged up into the rafters and stored_. Like a leopard would.

Something moved outside, on the helipad – a ghosting shadow in the night. What she couldn't tell – it was gone too quickly to get anymore than a fleeting impression of something fast moving and dark. She tried to reacquire some hint of it, but it was out of range of the motion sensor, and the lashing rain meant even her goggles were little help.

_This is a bad idea, girl. Charlie was right. Not your problem_.

Too late now though. She moved to the door leading outside. The hunt was already on. Unfortunately she strongly suspected that she was now taking the role of prey rather than the hunter.

As she stepped outside the rain beat down around her so intensely that it was difficult to see or hear anything beyond a few feet. Her pace was slow and deliberate, and the motion sensor remained resolutely blank. Idly she wondered if it actually worked at all. 

Abruptly, as she reached the helipad, the rain eased off – torrential downpour to light, spitting drizzle in an eye blink, like somebody had closed a faucet. The sudden stillness and quiet were intensely eerie.

There were three helicopters. A large white Sea King bearing the Tex-oil logo – which was obviously used for transporting crew between land and platform. A much smaller Bell, sleek and modern and gleaming, sat beyond it. Finally, over on the far side of the platform from her, there was the Lynx, painted in dull military grey. Charlie's commando squad.

She ducked underneath the Sea King's tail, making her way towards the Lynx. 

The helicopter's side door stood open, and, movements tentative, Lara leant forwards, peering inside. Immediately the vivid semi-metallic blood smell from her dreams struck her hard. She withdrew quickly. Pilot and co-pilot had remained in position, ready for a rapid take off, by the look of it. Unfortunately something had found them. What was left was not pleasant. It looked like they'd been taken unawares, scarcely having time to move, let alone put up any kind of fight.

A downwards glance at the motion sensor showed a pale white blob, moving slowly but steadily parallel to her position, about ten yards away. 

"I know you're here. I know you can hear me." Her voice sounded too loud in her own ears, still trying to compensate for the joint rackets of machinery and rainfall that were now absent. Her voice sounded scared.

Someone chuckled, close behind her. 

She whirled, heart leaping up into her throat. She _hadn't_ known it was that close.

It was just a man. He stood about five yards away. _Further away than the chuckle had come from_.

He was tall, attired in a suit blacker than the night sky he stood silhouetted against. His skin was almost as dark as the suit.

"Stay where you are." She pointed the MP5 at him, trying to cover her surprise. _An employee? A survivor?_ "Who are you?"

He smiled. It was an amused smile, brilliantly white. _You already know that_, the smile said.

His suit wasn't wet from the rain she noted. She took a step back and found herself pressed against the side of the Lynx, any retreat cut off. Without meaning to she met his eyes.

Or eye. The right one was normal, dark and placid looking. The left though . . . something sparkled bloodily inside an over-large socket.

"You're the shape shifter. The . . ." She used the odd word that Dr. Serengo had. The word she didn't quite understand. She could feel her palms sweating, greasy on the grip of her gun.

He tilted his head to one side. "I'm sorry. I don't know what that means." His voice was soft, nearly gentle, and scrupulously polite. "I _am_ the one you came here for though."

"Is that right?" It came out sounding a lot calmer than she was actually feeling.

"I felt you close to me. When I woke. Your blood . . . we forged a link. I know that you dream of me."

She opened her mouth to ask him how he could know that.

"It flows both ways. The link, I mean."

Her mouth shut with an audible click as she realised something. "You speak English?" And he _was_ speaking English, she thought. She wasn't just subconsciously interpreting the words as such.

"You are what you eat." He smiled again – gleaming white teeth. "I eat a lot." 

An icy chill hit her as she belatedly realised that was an explanation rather than a bizarre _non sequitar_. The chill intensified as her gaze hit the Bell helicopter behind him. He had eaten the pilots, which meant . . ..

"I was waiting for you to come to me."

She struggled to think straight. The gun she held suddenly felt no more than a clumsy, functionless hunk of metal. "You called to me, didn't you?" It hadn't been her idea to come out here at all.

The smile faded to something more contemplative. "It has been a long time. Everything has changed."

"What do you want?" This time there was a very definite tremor to Lara's voice.

He tilted his head to one side. She got the impression he was trying to extract meaning from something that sounded nonsensical. Eventually he said. "I am hungry."

"So what? You're going to eat me?"

"You know what the hunger is. You have felt it. A shadow of it." His words were simultaneously both apologetic and annoyed. Apologetic about what he had to do. Annoyed that she didn't already understand something that should have been perfectly obvious, forcing him to explain.

He took a step forward. Her finger tightened on the trigger. "Any closer and I shoot you."

"I have felt your dreams. I want to know what you know." Lara got the distinct impression that he thought she was being most unreasonable even to think of denying him this. 

He took another step towards her, so she shot him.

A volley of 10mm bullets took him directly in the chest, making him jerk like a rag doll in the wind. He changed. Instantly, with no transitionary phase, he was the cat – perfect essence of cat. Black as the suit he'd been wearing and bigger than an adult lioness. One eye was a shining golden disk, the other – the diamond – sparkling and bloody.

Dr. Serengo had been wrong, she realised distantly as she kept the trigger depressed. It wasn't a shapeshifter. The man was still there, behind the cat, just as the cat had always been there, even when she was talking to the man. Cat and man existed simultaneously in exactly the same spot, bound together by the diamond, two halves of a binary being. It was her perceptions that it altered, not itself.

It roared and the entire platform shook with its fury. Bullets kept on hitting it in a constant stream, fur and blood flying, but it didn't seem to be bothered. The wounds healed over almost as quickly as they were inflicted, flesh flowing shut like silly putty. All the food it had gorged on recently, she realised. All the energy it had stored, focused into repairing itself. The bullets pitter-pattered on the ground around it as they were forcibly expelled.

The MP5 ran out of ammunition with a dry death rattle.

It roared again – a terrifying, primal sound. She tensed to try and roll aside as it pounced, all the while knowing she was too slow . . ..

More bullets hit it, catching it in crossfire from either side of the helipad. Instead of pouncing on her the cat whirled, zeroing in on one of its new assailants, covering twenty feet in a single effortless bound.

Scarcely believing her luck, Lara glanced down at the motion sensor. It showed four blobs of light, arrayed around the perimeter of the helipad. _Charlie's commando team?_

She didn't waste time debating the issue, making a swift, zigzagging run for cover. More gunfire rang out, a cacophony coming from all sides. There was another deafening roar.

Something tore through the calf of her wet suit, raising a stinging line of pain. Lara swore, half-stumbling but managing to catch her balance before she fell. Suddenly bullets were buzzing around her like angry hornets. It took her a few moments to ascertain she hadn't just blundered accidentally to someone's line of fire but was being targeted deliberately. Desperately she changed direction, diving full-length behind a half-assembled crane.

Suddenly the rain was coming down again in heavy, vision obscuring sheets, the drumming of it competing with the gunfire. Across the opposite side of the helipad there was a blood curdling scream, which subsided quickly into a series of obscenely wet tearing noises.

Forcing her hands to stop shaking, Lara snapped a new clip into the MP5. She focussed on the spot where the person who'd shot at her had been located and – running in a half-crouch, using the falling rain as partial cover – she started to skirt around the pad towards him. Behind her the tearing noises had stopped and the cat let out another ear splitting roar.

She made it most of the way towards him – a bulky black-clad figure crouched in the cover of a stairwell descending into the depths of the platform. At the last moment he saw her. It became apparent that the first time he'd tried to shoot her had been no accident. He started firing wildly towards her again, but the bullets went well wide. 

Her answering burst was much more accurate. She heard him yelp, then he fell back down the stairs with a loud clatter. Another scream rang out as the cat located a second gunman.

Moving quickly, Lara ran down the steps. The rain helped block out the horrible sound of cat feasting again. She could see the man she'd shot lying flat out on his back at the bottom. As she watched he moved, reaching for the gun he'd lost in the fall.

She jumped the last five of six steps, landing on his wrist. There a sharp snapping sound, followed a fraction later by a harsh cry of pain. As he tried to rise and grapple her despite his injury she punched him the face, dropping him back.

"I'm with Charlie!" she hissed at him.

"Wha . . .?" The dazed response held no trace of comprehension. He was wearing a Kevlar vest, she saw, but at least one of the 10mm bullets had penetrated it. Blood was running profusely down his side. His breathing sounded laboured at close quarters. 

She reached down and pulled the balaclava he was wearing off. The face underneath was squashed and hard – the sort of face that looked like it had gone head on with a baseball bat and come away with a creditable draw. "I'm not another of those bloody cat things. You don't have to fucking kill me!"

"Do actually," he managed to huff out.

He was American, she realised with a jolt. Charlie hadn't mentioned the nationality of his team, but . . .. He wasn't one of Charlie's, she concluded grimly. "You work for Tex-oil, or Vitali?"

He blinked, but no other response was forthcoming. She dismissed it with a shake of her head. Whether she'd accidentally wandered into the middle of a sanitisation operation, or Vitali had sent a hit squad after her, didn't – in the prevailing circumstances – seem overly important.

A third scream rang out. If her quick glimpse of the motion sensor earlier on had told an accurate picture then that meant they were the last ones left.

She grabbed the man by the front of his vest, trying to haul him to his feet. As he weighed well over two-hundred pounds the hauling failed to have much effect. Apart from a strangled cry as she jarred his broken arm.

"Get up," she hissed at him. "Get up or you stay behind as cat food."

Something finally seemed to penetrate and she saw a flash of fear in his eyes. He struggled to get his feet underneath himself and rise, breath wheezing. As he stumbled she caught him, _ooph-_ing as his weight settled on her shoulder.

There was a door in front of them, leading back inside the rig. The wet handle resisted her for a frustratingly long moment before it finally opened with a squeal of badly oiled hinges. She could almost feel the cat's breath, hot on the back of her neck.

As they half-stumbled, half-walked along, the wounded mercenary gradually managed to take more of his own weight, and their halting pace quickened slightly – though his lungs still wheezed like broken bellows. Electric lights flickered and hummed; pipes gurgled; machinery whirred and chugged and clanked. Their own footsteps echoed loudly, all of it combining to drown out the possibility of hearing any pursuit. As Lara glanced tensely behind them she saw that they were leaving a trail of blood splatters that marked their passage as brightly as a neon sign.

The urge to simply dump him and run for it was strong. _It might just buy you enough time while the cat eats him to make the dingy_, an inner voice whispered.

She suppressed it, though her heart was tripping along too fast in barely contained panic. She noted her surroundings and changed direction abruptly when she realised where they were, heading for a flight of stairs leading upwards. A shadow of an idea had formed, though it smacked of an idiocy born out of desperation.

The mercenary stumbled, pulling her down to her knees alongside him.

"I can't make it." He sounded almost calm between the panting.

Lara kicked him. "Get up, you bastard."

He coughed. It might have been an attempt at laughter. "What . . . do you . . . care? I'm . . . supposed to . . . kill you . . . Lara."

Vitali's men then, if they knew her name_. _"Get up!" She kicked him a second time, pulling him so hard that she almost overbalanced entirely. "I need you." The plan wouldn't work without him. 

_It won't work with him, you silly cow_.

With a groan he came up, supporting himself between her and the railing in a manner that suggested his legs had packed in entirely. After several seconds pause he managed to steady himself slightly and they began to teeter precariously up the stairs together. At the top he fell to his knees again, though this time he made it back to his feet without too much prompting from her. The bleeding from his side had, if anything, gotten even worse.

There was a sound behind them. Lara looked back, wild-eyed, but couldn't see anything. They tried to quicken their pace.

Lurching twenty feet along another interchangeable corridor, half of it deeply shadowed where a lightbulb had failed, led to a left turn. Another twenty odd feet and they arrived at there destination. By that time Lara's breath was coming nearly as heavily as her companion's.

"Get in there." She shoved him bodily into one of the decompression chambers, then turned away from him and set to work.

**11. Traps within Traps.**

The cat sauntered into the room with the casual arrogance of someone who knows that they not only own the place, but are absolutely untouchable there too. It seemed even larger than before, as if the three men it had just eaten had added directly to its stature. Muscles coiled and flexed beneath silky black-velvet hide, speaking silently of pure animal grace and phenomenal feral power. There was no trace of bullet wounds or other injuries to mark its immaculate form.

From her shadowed corner of concealment Lara watched it, struggling to stay as silent as possible. The way her heartbeat sounded – a rhythmically percussive drum – half convinced her that that alone would be enough to give away her presence.

But the cat appeared to have read its part in the script, and gave no indication that it had spotted her. It advanced steadily towards the decompression chamber and its slightly ajar door, following the trail of blood.

The metal floor in front of it swam beneath a layer of liquid, no more than a few millimetres deep. The cat padded into it without pause, though it affected a mild attitude of distaste as it did so. Its eyes remained fixed upon the heavy decompression chamber door.

The wait was agony. She half wondered if its slow pace was a deliberate mockery – that it had seen through what she was doing, and was merely drawing things out; getting her hopes up before it turned away at the last moment and pounced.

But no, it reached the entrance to the decompression chamber and, ever so cautiously, stuck its head inside the gap. She heard the mercenary – Grayson, he had said his name was as he'd pleaded with her for mercy when awareness of what she intended to do had dawned – make a sound from inside that might have been a whimper.

The cat's shoulders were slightly too broad to fit through the narrow gap. It had to force the door open a fraction wider in order to be able to fit. Inside Grayson made a raw, ragged sound which wanted to be a scream. On top of the door a carefully balanced bucket toppled and fell, spilling its contents.

The cat drew back, startled as it was suddenly soaked. She heard it make a noise that sounded like an indignant sneeze, and wondered if it would turn tail right at the last.

But no. The hunger seemed to reassert control. She saw its hindquarters tense and coil, and suddenly it lunged forward almost too quickly for the eye to follow, into the decompression chamber towards the irresistible live bait that it contained.

She leant forward and hit the control for the door on the panel in front of her. It swung smoothly shut with a quiet clunk and hiss.

Incomprehensibly, she missed. The cat turned back on itself, impossibly lithe and agile, even as it gave the appearance of darting forwards. When the door closed, it was still – somehow – standing outside. Even though she had seen every single instant of what had taken place her brain still couldn't quite work out what had happened.

It was looking directly at her – standing on a chair beside the control console in the room's corner, nowhere left to run. As its tongue lolled between viciously sharp canines it seemed almost to be grinning at her. _I see through you_.

Then it was the man again, his suit slightly besmirched by the liquid that had soaked him, but otherwise as darkly immaculate as before. He smiled at her and she felt her blood turn to ice. "I have learned about decompression chambers, among many other marvellous and interesting things. And I have had more years than I care to count to ponder on the nature of my hunger in regard to traps."

"At least give me credit for trying, eh?" Her voice held resignation.

"You know what the hunger is. You know how this must be." He sounded genuine puzzled by why she would try so hard to resist it, having that knowledge. "Pain is just a fleeting butterfly."

She met its gaze coolly, despite the primal terror trying to bubble its way up inside her. "Have you considered that perhaps, for all you have absorbed – for all that part of you was once human – it is you who are incapable of understanding properly? After all, at heart you are still just a cat."

"Don't be afraid. You knowledge and memories will live on – it is immortality of a sort, and more than most achieve." His expression was sympathetic – like he wanted to reassure her. "You have played your hand; rolled your dice. Your trap is sprung. And the hunger remains."

Very carefully she aimed the flare gun she was holding, concealed behind her back, towards the floor at his feet. "Maybe. But who said the decompression chamber was the trap?"

He had just started to get a slightly quizzical look on his face when she pulled the trigger.

* * *

"If I can't kill it then can I defeat it some other way? Make it so it becomes merely a diamond once again. Like it was when I found it."

Dr. Serengo pursed his lips contemplatively. "Well, you can always try to do what they did last time."

"Which was?"

He snorted. "Oh come now Lara, you know very well what they did. I think you've known it all along."

For a long moment she didn't speak. Then she nodded. "Bait a trap too strong for it to resist." _Twelve people, staked out in a cave, screaming in terror, knowing full well what their fate was to be. When the beast ventures inside, drawn to the stench of their blood and terror – the song of their screams – collapse the cave behind it, burying everything inside alive_. "Spring the trap at the right moment and entomb it."

"Then wait for it to starve. Wait until its hunger is such that it is forced to consume its own flesh and only the focal point remains." Dr. Serengo smiled. "Simple, no?"

"No," she said succinctly. 

He shrugged. "I know little more than you Lara. This is not, needless to say, a problem I have had to face myself. We speak today as equals. Not as teacher and student."

She folded her arms tightly across her chest. "There is nothing more that you can tell me then? Nothing else that might help?"

"I have heard," he began, after a long pause. "And I have no way of knowing how accurate this is – we are after all talking about a myth – that these feral spirits have a . . . respect of fire."

She raised an eyebrow. It sounded almost too easy. "They're afraid of fire?"

"I said respect, Lara," he cautioned. "I did not say fear. I think it may just be recognition of something that is even more totally driven by hunger than itself."

* * *

She had tried to keep the oil from the floor on her side of the room, and had stood on the chair for good measure to further avoid the initial burst of flame. Even so the explosion of heat was ferocious, a blast of hot air scalding her face and singeing her eyebrows as she flinched away from the roaring wall of fire that leapt up.

In the middle of it all she briefly saw him – the cat; the shapeshifter – go up like a lit torch. As she watched he changed, one form to the other then back again, flickering amidst the inferno like badly spliced movie footage. Both forms burned just as brightly though.

Without waiting to see more, the heat all but unbearable now, Lara turned and ran full pelt.

Behind her there was a cataclysmic roar. Settled on cat form – as she had said, when it came down to it the cat was what it was – the shifter exploded from the heart of the flames as a living feline fireball. 

She didn't look back. She didn't need to. She could feel the intense heat behind her as it gained rapidly.

Careering round a corner in a flat out sprint she heard its claws scrabbling on slippery metal, then a loud crash as it slammed into the wall, not quite manoeuvring its bulk round the turn in time. Another deafening roar resounded behind her. Again she didn't look behind her. Any gain she'd brought herself was miniscule.

Directly ahead of her she saw a railing. The cat was closing so fast now that she didn't dare to slow even a fraction, or try to turn away. Flames licked at her heels, the tip of her trailing braid catching a spark and igniting. Without even pausing to look what lay beyond, she vaulted the railing

The drop was the equivalent of around two storeys onto hard metal. By luck she missed the assorted crates, barrels and folded lengths of thick chain and landed on a relatively flat area. Twisting and rolling instinctively, she managed to avoid breaking her legs, but the impact was still enough to leave her sprawled flat out, all the breath blasted from her body.

The shifter had leapt too, landing on a catwalk almost thirty feet above her. As she gulped for air she could see it staring down at her. The diamond in its left eye socket shone like a bloody star amid the surrounding corona of flame.

It dropped. Desperately she rolled aside as it plummeted towards her like an animate comet. Straining for breath, the scorching heat from it like an open furnace next to her, she scrambled towards an open freight elevator. Collapsing inside, she stabbed at the door control before falling against the back wall.

The door was painfully slow to shut. The cat charged towards her. She stared at it wide-eyed, still struggling to catch her breath, nowhere left to retreat. It pounced . . .

There was a thunderous crash. Lift door and cat tried to occupy the same space simultaneously. The lift door just about came out ahead, though it buckled inwards as if a car had been driven into it. Gulping, Lara hit another control. The elevator began to lurch upwards with a harsh grinding sound, so badly deformed from the impact that it scraped against the sides of the shaft.

With a moment's pause amidst the surrounding madness, Lara finally became aware of the burning sensation in the middle of her back – the sharp stench of burning hair. Yelping, she dropped to the floor, rolling to extinguish the flames.

There was a tremendous thud and the lift lurched violently, clanging loudly as it bounced against the walls of the lift shaft. The cat, landing on top of it. The lift cable made an ominous creaking sound

The roof of the lift was a combination of thick metal bars and steel grating. Staring upwards, Lara could see the cat, glaring down at her. It burned as brightly as ever and the heat from it at this close proximity was suffocating.

For the first time she was able to get a proper look at what the fire was doing to it. Somehow she found the process grotesquely fascinating. Flesh burned and blackened and shrivelled as fire ravaged it, but then just as quickly healed over again, before, seconds later charring and being consumed once more in an endlessly repeating cycle. It was as though the cat's flesh had taken a life of its own and was try to crawl away from its bones – constantly in motion beneath the blazing wreath of flame.

Dropping back to the floor in an effort to retreat as far from the stifling heat as possible, Lara found herself wondering briefly how long it could continue to repair itself. _Forever?_ No, it looked much gaunter than before.

Growling resonantly, the cat started to claw at the lift's roof, peeling it back like a can-opener assaulting a sardine tin.

Not forever, but by the look of things long enough to finish her.

Lara grabbed the knife sheathed around her ankle. She'd lost the MP5 at some point she couldn't remember in her headlong flight. It felt like a pitiful weapon – was a pitiful weapon against the foe she faced – but she used it stab upwards at the cat anyway in an effort to delay and distract it.

It swatted the knife away with an almost contemptuous sweep of one burning paw, knocking Lara back against the lift wall in the process, hard enough to set her ears ringing. Her vision swam in oil-like patterns of red and black.

Gritting her teeth, she scrabbled for the fallen knife. The cat went on clawing at the roof, widening the gap it had created as the lift continued its clanging, grating ascent. She could see its great curving fangs bared at her in a silent snarl. The fire even burned within its throat now.

Her hand closed on the hilt of the knife again. She looked up at the gap, still not quite large enough to accommodate the cat's straining bulk.

It roared at her – anger and triumph – then it was the man again. The man _was_ small enough to fit through the space it had made. He dropped smoothly inside, landing on his feet in front of her with effortless agility, blazing like a torch.

Lara stabbed him in the chest, the blade angling inwards and up between two ribs, plunging hilt deep. Her fingers blistered and burned as the flames licked at them.

For all the good it did she might as well have tried tickling him. He shoved her away with contemptuous ease and she slammed into the wall, sliding down to land in a boneless heap on the floor.

The lift stopped with a violent jolt, and the buckled doors started to edge open, tortured metal grinding and shrieking in protest. Clinging to consciousness by her fingernails Lara started to crawl towards the opening, despite the fact she knew there was no chance of getting away. 

Dimly she was aware of man becoming cat again – a dark shape in the heart of the fire.

She kept crawling forward, anticipating the sudden bite or casual swat of a blazing paw that would end it, but keeping going regardless. There was nothing else left to do.

The killing strike took an age in coming. Still she crawled forwards. The ground in front of her was suddenly cold and wet, concrete instead of metal. It was just playing with her, she knew – letting her experience a flash of terrified hope before extinguishing even that – but she forced herself onwards until all her strength had gone. Then she collapsed, flat out, rolling over onto her back, chest heaving.

And she waited.

Nothing happened. 

Deliciously cool rain fell around her as she lay flat out on her back. She blinked slowly up at the night sky. All she could hear was the falling rain.

Eventually she forced herself to lift her head. She'd made it about thirty feet from the lift. The doors still stood open and she stared at the circle of flame that burned inside it. 

There was no sign of either man or cat. Something glittered in the middle of the blaze. Eventually she realised it was the diamond. Just the diamond. 

The flames died down to nothing – extinguished to black. She collapsed back again, laughing weakly as the rain fell around her.

**12. Cat and Mouse.**

"Come in, my dear." Vitali spoke into the intercom on his desk, then pressed the button that would unlock the armour plated door. Smiling, he sat back, snubbed out his cigar butt in a crystal ash tray, and took a lingering sip from a champagne flute.

The door opened. He let out a low whistle at the sight of the woman who stood framed there. Amazonian in stature, with long blond hair, she looked as if she had been poured into a slinky black cocktail dress that fit her like a sheath. Her legs seemed to go on for several miles. He grinned, fat face managing to look wolfish beneath a slicked-back widow's peak. "Andrei has truly excelled himself today."

The woman's dark red lips curved in an expression that was somehow predatory. Vitali felt a tiny shiver of thrill pass up his spine. _Oh, yes, Andrei is definitely to be congratulated_. "Come here, my dear. Come here. No need to be shy."

The way she walked – her whole body swaying with a lithe, liquidly hypnotic sensuality – made his blood race. He put the champagne flute down before he forgot about it and dropped it. "Do you speak Russian, my dear? That would make you perfect in every single way."

"Only a little," she pouted prettily.

"No matter. No matter. You're American? Is that accent West Virginia?" He chuckled. "Anyway, who cares? God bless the US of A. What's your name?"

The predatory smile returned, although Vitali didn't see it as she placed both hands on the edge of his desk and bent forward at the hips. His gaze was drawn magnetically to a somewhat lower vicinity. "You can call me Diana."

"Diana. A lovely name. Entrancing." His eyes were still stuck at round about her chest level.

She laid her jewel encrusted handbag down on the desk, then walked smoothly around to him. Almost bouncing out of his chair he rose to meet her halfway. The waft of perfume that hit him made his knees go weak.

She ran a red-nailed finger tip along the line of his jaw, then snaked it down the front of his shirt. Vitali laid an eager hand on her hip, pulling her possessively close. His heart was pounding as she pressed herself tightly against him.

Their lips were separated by a fingerbreadth. His free hand came up to the back of her neck, chubby fingers tangling in her long hair.

"So eager, Vitali." 

He froze, eyes going wide. All trace of the West Virginia accent had vanished, replaced by a slightly wry, half-mocking English one that was rather familiar. Her wig slid off in his hand.

Lara head butted him the face, then swept his legs out from under him. By the time he came back to his senses he'd been handcuffed to the radiator. 

Her back was to him and she appeared to be caught up in the process of arranging something on his desk, just out of range of his vision. When she'd finished to her satisfaction she turned around. 

She planted a stiletto-heeled shoe firmly across his throat, making him wince in pain as she slowly applied downward pressure. "Someone's been a naughty boy, haven't they Vitali." Just for a moment her voice was back to that of the prostitute, playful and teasing. 

He gulped. "W-What do you want?"

The pressure on his throat lessened just fractionally. Her heel had left a bright red imprint in the flabby flesh of his neck. "I'm thinking revenge possibly? Yes, that sounds about right."

Another gulp. Vitali was sweating profusely all of a sudden. "Lara, please. Be reasonable. Nothing that happened was personal."

She tilted an eyebrow.

"I could have just had Savimbi kill you!"

Her foot lifted from his throat entirely and she stepped away from him. He gave a tug on the handcuff but the radiator didn't budge so much as a millimetre.

"Impressively sturdy construction," Lara noted. "The sound proofing is good too, I've heard. Your privacy demands it, doesn't it? Wouldn't want the rest of the floor to hear your playmates faking orgasms. Why, you could probably shout at the top of your lungs for hours on end without anyone ever coming to help you."

A droplet of sweat trickled down the side of his face. "Lara, you're a pragmatic woman. I know that. Name your price." It would have sounded more convincing without the very noticeable quaver to his voice.

"How many died on the Tex-oil platform, Vitali?" she asked him conversationally. "How much in total, would you estimate their lives to be worth?"

"Look. I didn't really know what would happen. It was just an experiment . . .. A . . . A . . .."

"A bit of fun? A bit of a lark? A rather jolly little prank?"

He shut up, sensing that he wasn't exactly helping his case.

"Anyway, leaving revenge aside for the moment, I thought I'd return some of your property." Lara reached out onto his desk, out of range of his vision. When she turned back to him she was holding a large, pink-tinted diamond.

All of the blood drained from his face.

"There's a couple of other things up here you probably can't see too," she continued. "For example, we have a beaker filled with half a pint of fresh human blood. Can you guess where I'm going yet?"

"Lara." He whetted his lips. "Lara, please." An attempt to clear his throat made it sound like he was slowly strangling. He made another half-hearted attempt to pull free of the handcuff.

"Please?" She fixed him with a cold glare that made him flinch away. "Are you asking me for compassion, Vitali? For mercy? You?"

"You're bluffing. I know you are." Again it would have been more convincing if his voice hadn't been shaking so badly. "If you unleash that thing it'll kill you too."

"Like it did your men? Your two faithful servants, who you sent out to wake it," she murmured. Real anger cracked briefly to the surface, before being smoothed over again. "Rather harsh of you that. What did they do to offend you? Anything?"

Wisely he didn't say anything in response.

"Anyway, I'm safe, I think. This rather interesting construction here should give me plenty of time to escape. See, I leave the diamond perched here, above the beaker of blood on this little platform. Then I set the metronome here ticking, like _so_. Ten minutes later the platform drops down and the diamond falls into the blood." She turned back to him, fixing his gaze with hers again. "Your witch doctor ripped you off, you know that Vitali? Yes I know you had him murdered afterwards, but still, he ripped you off. All you ever needed was the blood. The rest of the mumbo jumbo was exactly that."

"You're not going to do this. I know you're not."

"That sounds like a bet to me." Lara lent forward and did something he couldn't see. A fraction of a second later he heard hollow, steady ticking. "The ten minutes has started Vitali." She started to walk away.

Vitali pulled frantically at the handcuff, this time trying to pull his hand out rather than jerk the radiator off the wall. It was useless, the metal of the cuff cutting deeply into the fat of his wrist as he pulled, drawing blood "Lara! Lara! Wait. You can't do this to me!"

He heard the door handle turn.

"Lara! Listen to me." Desperation turned his voice high and shrill. "I know this isn't who you are. You can't just leave me to be slaughtered."

"Oh, I think you'd be surprised Vitali. Really, I do."

"W-What about everyone else? There're over three hundred people in this building. You'll be murdering them too!" Again he tried to pull out of the cuff, groaning in stifled agony as again he failed utterly. "There's no sea to contain it here!"

There was a pause. He started to let out a sigh of relief.

Something flew through the air and landed with a thud on the carpet, next to his head. It was a combat knife, still in its sheath. Vitali stared at it.

"I'll give you a chance."

"You expect me to be able to fight it off with that?!" He sounded incredulous.

She laughed. "No, of course not. Don't be silly."

"Then what . . .?"

"Well, you could always kill yourself with it, before _it_ materialises. That's one option."

"Lara . . ."

"Or you can try to get out of the cuffs before the ten minutes are up."

"Please, Lara. I'm begging you."

"You won't saw through the cuffs themselves, of course. Not with that blade on high tensile steel. Not in the time you have left. You could try to pick the lock with the knife's tip I suppose, but I don't rate your chances on that either. I know. Been there and done that. You'll probably just snap the blade . . .."

"Don't." He started to sob at the deadly remorselessness of her voice, unable to help himself. "Lara, please don't."

She went on breezily as if he hadn't said anything. "You could however cut through your wrist quite easily inside ten minutes. All it takes is a bit of will power."

Silence lingered, fractured only by the occasional muffled sob from Vitali. After a few seconds more he heard the door open. "Eight minutes or so left, Vitali. I'd get started if I were you. Time is precious."

"Lara! You fucking bitch!"

The door shut behind her with a click.

_Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Tick-tock._ The sound of the metronome became all consuming, hammering incessantly in his head – a clock of doom.

For a time he twisted frantically, kicking out at the desk. He might as well have been kicking at a boulder for all the good it did. It was, he knew, bolted to the floor – a precaution against explosions, like the armoured door and bullet-proof windows. 

_Tick-tock. Tick-tock._

Finally his gaze settled on the knife again. Hand shaking, blinking through the tears, he picked it up.

**Epilogue**

Charles Kane was absolutely livid, she could see. The rather fetching shade of purple gave that one away right off.

"You broke into the Yukol building," he accused, falling into step with her as soon as she was through the front gate. Anger leaked into his voice.

"Hardly broke, Charlie. Obtained entry by means of a deception, maybe. But not broke."

She saw that he was gritting his teeth, and the ends of his moustache were twitching in a manner that was more than a little comical. She managed to keep a straight face on account of not wanting to induce apoplexy. "Don't argue semantics," he snapped.

"You look annoyed," she understated. "Have I done anything to offend you?"

"You took the fucking diamond with you." It was almost a snarl. "You broke into the safe and you stole it."

"Yes. I did."

He blinked, seemingly having expected some kind of denial or excuse. His anger lost a large part of its momentum, and what followed was mainly bluster. "What the hell did you think you were playing at? I thought I knew you better that. That somewhere in there you had a sense of responsibility."

"I needed to have a conversation with our friend Vitali," she stated.

"Are you an idiot?"

"Possibly Charlie. Possibly."

He muttered something she didn't catch. "You of all people know what that . . . _thing_ can do. But no. He killed your friend, so you have to pay him back, and bugger the consequences."

She stopped and turned to face, hands on hips. "Okay. Enough. This is losing its entertainment value now. What, precisely, do you think I've done Charlie?"

His mouth worked, then snapped shut. She'd pulled something out of her pocket and held it up before his face. The diamond sparkled where the sun hit it.

"Verisimilitude. Considering that you weren't going to arrest the bastard I thought he at least deserved to experience a little discomfort over what he's done. He was still perfectly fine when I left him. Maybe bruised ever so slightly – nothing more."

Charlie grimaced but refrained from saying anything else. Without warning she flipped the diamond to him. He caught it reflexively, looking down at it uncomfortably.

"Put it somewhere very, very safe Charlie. And don't tell me where." She paused briefly. "I never want to see the bastard thing again."

THE END


End file.
